


Bonegrinder

by cashmiracles



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Disturbing Themes, Gen, frostbitten and half mad prisoners, is it angst? more just 'let's pick apart kael's character in an au', nothing too graphic though it may change in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashmiracles/pseuds/cashmiracles
Summary: the dungeons beneath icecrown are dreadful places indeed





	1. Chapter 1

The dungeons beneath Icecrown Citadel were frigid, maddening holes of despair where those damned enough to be taken by The Lich King were held alive in the wretched prisons made of saronite and ice, left to rot until they were taken up the spires to be made into something warped and dead, colder than they were in the dungeons where nobody could hear their screams; begging for mercy, divine retribution, water but always sunlight, sunlight, sunlight.

Kael'thas had been taken in a mess of a skirmish, ghouls tumbling down the cliffside sheltering their camp on the outskirts of icecrown, up high and guarded well by ice and height and rough terrain; or so the scouts had vehemently sworn. When Kael'thas got out he swore he'd have the scouts, every last one of them whose daft faces he remembered, put to work in the places of the enchanted brooms in Silvermoon - punishment befitting fools who blunder in wartime.

But he knew as he sat in the cell barely tall enough for him to sit comfortably that the chances of escape were slim. There were humans in the other cells, neighbours all with misfortune in common, all with something black on them; black noses, black fingers, feet bare and toes black. Frostbite. He didn't deign to talk to them, for they all seemed half mad. 

All humans were a little mad, he thought wryly. 

That black reverie of humour was snatched from him only to be replaced by mounting dread that chilled his soul, such cold that he'd never felt even in the face of Jaina's magic when they'd practiced (together) in Dalaran. She looked so beautiful then, and he thought of her to soothe his addled mind, her blonde hair and blue eyes that burned with all the ferocity befitting an elvish queen, and it took him away, away like fatalistic humour never could as the click of metal boots against ice gained closer, louder, tendrils of cold like the last breath of his father encroaching in the periphary of his recollections. This finally consumed him, and Kael'thas turned from facing the wall (he couldn't stand to see the loathsome faces of those afflicted men) and blue eyes struck him like an arrow, stunning him with their unnatural intensity, one that the Sin'dorei prince met with burning, green fury.

"I quite liked it better when they were blue."

The first words out of Arthas' mouth infuriated him ever as much as when he'd been a reckless young paladin quashing all hopes of Kael'thas' boyish crush becoming something more substantial. Oh, but now it was much more - much more than annoyance directed towards a whelp of a man, an idiot prince with too much confidence and too little sense; this thing had killed his father, decimated his people, and had personally left him with all of their burdens weighing on his shoulders, dogging him down.

"Fel energy, is that what you've turned to, Kael'thas? Greedily devouring anything to sate that addiction of yours." His hand jut in between the bars of the cells, grabbed Kael'thas by the chin and held him in place tight. Kael'thas didn't struggle, narrowed eyes burning like the pits of a demon's cauldron, blazing with unrestrained fury. Arthas' lips curled into a sickle smile and with that act of condescension Kael'thas finally broke.

His lips pursed, and he spat. 

The spit flew and landed on Arthas' helm, just above his cheek and as the transluscent fluid dripped down the side of (Arthas') The Lich King's face, Kael'thas felt such rapturous, petty satisfaction. Even as the heavy slap of a gauntlet steeped in frigid ice echoed throughout the dismal prison, Kael'thas felt no indignation even with a cheek numb from cold and beginning to bruise, the taste of welling copper in his mouth. Impudently, he refused to speak; stubbornly arching a long brow of his as if what Arthas had done felt like nothing, as if he were in control while caged like a finch, the biggest current threat to the world order looming over him like a horrifying armoured gargoyle of what was once a man.

"You elves... Stubborn to the very end, thinking defiance will give you some glory when you inevitably fall." He didn't look at Arthas. Kept his cool, jaw set in anger, hands clenched with long, manicured nails digging welts into the pale flesh of his soft palms. "Do you think your father had any dignity in his death? I cut him down like a mongrel, and he screamed when I took his soul." Kael'thas' breathing increased in its tempo, almost hitching as Arthas continued - Arthas thought it amusing, cute, perhaps. "And he still screams even now." 

"Hold your vile tongue." He took the bait. 

"I can hear his screams, and his whispers. Everything of your father is in my blade,"

"I said to silence yourself!"

"He begs for your life. I think rather, undeath would suit you. How he begs-"

Kael'thas shot up to a kneel and grasped the bars of his prison with a grip hard enough that the coating of superficial frost gracing the saronite, the ice that was born of the humidity of so many bodies in such a small space cracked and flaked, melted against Kael'thas' warm skin. Even silenced it seemed that he had enough strength to rally the last bit of whatever magic he could to warm himself. How novel.

"You're going to live, but I will make you regret ever denying me passage into your lands. I will make you regret ever having the notion of raising arms against me, and when you have nothing left of your mortality to give I will take what's left and use it against your weak, delusional allies." 

Arthas rose, stood above him like the very glacier of Icecrown itself, terrible and leeching all warmth; Kael'thas' hands felt numb, but he refused to let go of the bars that contained him, the metal that whispered to him when he dreamt, such terrible and maddening things that all made so much sense when he didn't allow himself the luxury of critical thought. And then, like a wraith, Arthas was gone down the hall and he was left alone in the citadel dungeons in his tiny, cramped and cold cell with nothing but the scuttling of ghouls and the agonised moaning of the taken, but alive. His father's memory kept him lonesome company, and he fell asleep resting his head against the hard, hard cell wall while recalling the time Anasterian held him on his lap in his very early youth and recited tales of childish fantasy.


	2. Fingers of Frost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kael'thas continues despite what might be good for him.

“Father? Why do I not see humans in your kingdom? There are lots and lots out there, right? Aren’t they like us?” Kael'thas was only small, having not even reached his hundredth year and up only to Anasterian’s knee in height. He wore robes which were as grandiose as was befitting the Prince of Quel'thalas but oh so silly on a form so tiny, Kael practically swimming in fabrics of blue and jade green and it all kept together by a green sash lashed tight around his waist, clasped with an emerald brooch. He looked up at Anasterian with big blue eyes, eyes that glowed with the innate arcane energy each elf was born with.

Anasterian opened his mouth some then closed it again with a sharp click of perfectly white teeth, trying to find the words with which to reply. Then, he knelt and placed his large hand on Kael'thas’ slight shoulder and looked at him as sternly as he’d dare.

 

“Humans aren’t like us, son. Just as hawkstriders and dragonhawk both have wings, they are not the same.” Kael'thas nodded, but just as he was about to ask further (to continue this memory as it should be) Anasterian spoke again. “It’s your fault.”

“Father?”

“Quel'thalas is falling.” And when Kael'thas looked up he saw snow, grey clouds above swirling like hookah smoke against a Silvermoon tavern ceiling, the disjointed thudding of thousands upon thousands of uncoordinated feet marching, dragging along the stonework, banging at the gates. They were at the gates, and there was no screaming, only stillness, silence, cold, such bitter chill but he didn’t shiver. “Father?” Anasterian didn’t draw Felo'melourn from its sheathe, only stood stock still like a palacial guard with his only acknowledgement of his young son being two words: “Your fault.”

Then they broke through. And people he’d never noticed were being slaughtered, but there was no blood; as if a mage had warped the passage of time, the screams came at last all at the same time, clashing together and reaching a crescendo.

He was an adult suddenly, and Anasterian was gone, his sword broken on the stonework, and yet Kael'thas remained so small and ineffective, invisible amongst the throng of undead that ignored him and marched on past him standing where the gates had once been, broken down without noise or notice. He wore the robes of a Dalaran mage, ugly things in comparison to the rich fabrics which the Prince of Quel'thalas was expected to adorn his body with, all purple and blue like rotted, ice-bitten flesh. 

He couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling of guilt that welled and crashed over him, terrifying in its intensity in a way which the elven prince had never experienced. More terrifying than the blue eyes that stalked him, so bright and piercing like his must have been at some point but - when had his eyes turned green like hellfire?

Kael'thas awoke in a cold sweat, face soaked with his long hair plastered to his cheeks. He wiped the wet off his skin, tucked those soaked strands back and - he felt with gentle fingertips that the wetness on his cheeks wasn’t sweat. He felt such utter indignation and rage, for elves did not cry. They were made of much sterner stuff, and even when he’d heard his father had been felled with such brutality that there was so little salvagable that a traditional elven king's funeral couldn't be held, he hadn’t cried.

It was Anasterian himself who, despite all his tender care had told Kael'thas that Princes did not weep and elves must save their tears and act instead. Crying was for their cousins whom they left across the sea, living in trees with leaves in their hair and scarce better off than the animals they danced with.

High Elves, now Blood Elves suffered their setbacks and heartaches with quiet dignity. And it made Kael'thas seethe, hate himself and Arthas more and more because he couldn’t cry over his father’s passing yet here he was upset like some snivelling human over a bad dream.

In his fury he rallied his strength and hit the cell wall, a dull unsatisfying noise of flesh hitting solid ice that accomplished nothing, his ire not sated and hand too numb to feel anything. In the dim light provided by his luminescent eyes he could see the discolouration of his skin. He could smell rot and damp and he turned to face the cell across from his, within resided a wretched body hunched over with its face blackened and twisted, frozen in agony. This stark imagery tore him out of that pit of frustration so that he hid his uncovered hands beneath his robes, tucked them close to his skin and curled in on himself.

He slipped into unconsciousness again, too tired to keep awake (though he wanted to, didn’t want to have another dream, good or bad). It was all black, nothing but darkness with shadows dancing before his eyes, shapes he couldn’t quite make out that writhed and squirmed like bloated, abomination-flesh fed maggots.

He’d wake up, then fall back asleep soon after, cold but too exhausted to stay awake; hours passed him by and he didn’t want to see those shapes again, their very existence having the connotation of danger like overgrown plants of unidentifiable origins.

He woke, a ghoul bent double before him with its hunched back curved like a sickle moon, each individual vertebrae visible through its tight, darkened skin, face hidden beneath burlap sack. One large, jaundiced eye peeked out from its hood and stared at him unwaveringly, and Kael'thas could only find the energy to glower.  
“Callssss… He callsssszzz.” 

He was foolish enough to ask. “Arthas?” 

Then the thing lurched forward like a marionette on a string and grabbed him around his waist, hoisted the elf upon his shoulders like he was nothing (though Kael could hear its bones creak under the stress of his added weight) and it was scurrying on two legs and an arm, loping off while Kael'thas tried to push himself away, tried to get out of its grip with what little strength he had.

The magic inhibitors that quelled the mana inside of him were gone, left back in that cell adjacent the prisoners who were risen from their stupor by seeing one of them taken, standing at their cell-bars in filthy rags, begging to be taken too; killed, turned, whatever, while others (fewer than those who begged and screamed) kept their dignity and kept close to the back of their cells, wanting to linger in the cold and just die, forgotten by Arthas and their comrades alike: it was in front of a particularly mad, grizzled human that Kael managed to land a particularly harsh blow, the undead stopping abruptly and throwing Kael to the floor.

“You insolent-” Gangly limbs with too-large fists hit him, again and again, but he grit his teeth, turned his head to avoid being knocked out and channelled what little magic that had not been leeched from his veins, and hit it with a bolt of fire that sent it back on its haunches, hissing, gurgling, hitting itself as it tried to put the flames out while rolling on the ground pathetically like a dog. 

Kael'thas stood and extinguished its life with another fireball, exhausting himself out of pride and spite; and then, when it was nothing but a smouldering burnt husk (warmth, finally), he dropped to his knees and fell back against the cell bars, basking in that terrible warmth he created and taking in that foul aroma of burning burlap and cooking, off meat.

His body is lax against the bars and with each passing moment he feels some strength return, magic through his veins unimpeded, yet he’s too physically exhausted to feel joy when that delicious tingly sensation reaches the tips of his fingers and ends of his toes. He felt a familiar tug against his scalp, his hair being pulled back, neck bared and eyes wide - the prisoner behind him, grizzled with neglect pulling his hair, pushing it against his unshaven cheek and inhaling it as if he were not freezing but drowning and Kael was the sole source of air available to him; Kael'thas jolted back abruptly and felt a few strands come loose in the human's grasp, expression contemptuous (hateful as when he'd looked upon Arthas himself) but not lasting.

The dirty, broken thing confined to that icy cage wasn't easy to glower down at with all the cold, reserved fury of an Elven Prince. The human's wheat blond hair was matted like a dog afflicted with mange, lips purpling like spring plums hanging from branches in the private gardens of the Court of the Sun, eyes rheumy and watering, red-rimmed from untold nights of restless sleep and crying, skin sallow and pale.

Kael'thas knew that he shouldn't be gawping at him sitting there with pale strands of Kael's hair between his fingers like a coveted prize. Time was precious, but the Prince's curiosity was roused at seeing a certain emblem emblazoned upon the tattered remains of his reeking tabard. He bore the mark of a Paladin - a sigil Kael'thas recognised from his days in Dalaran, a whisper of a memory of frustration at a human who he didn't quite loathe yet then; a Knight of the Silver Hand? He grasped the iron of the bars and stooped to get a better look, narrowing his eyes to a squint.

The wretch flinched at the dim light of his eyes, and Kael'thas had to step back. Had to because in that gaunt face he saw a man who'd been there for longer than weeks, months - was it years? Was he whisked from the Eastern Kingdoms to be toyed with? Was this man even living? If so, then how? He turned on his heel, curiosity quelled with a torrent of dread that reached its icy fingers far into his soul and held it tight. He took off in a flurry of red silk and gold brocade, leaving behind someone who would surely die in darkness a parting gift worth nothing and the smouldering corpse of a lowly undead that may have very once been a man like that doomed Paladin was.

_Not the only one._

Memories of Garithos swam in his mind, and he left them there to rot as the Grand Buffoon would have in the holds of Dalaran. He was sure - had to convince himself - that they would have left him in his cell without pause had every one of the humans managed to escape as he did.

_"It was a mistake to accept you into the Alliance in the first place. Now, at long last, you'll be dealt with appropriately."_

His ear twitched. He heard footsteps just as he was about to round the corner into the main passageway, at least thrice as broad as the 6 foot wide corridor he was trapped in and the floor tapering off from pure saronite plates anchored into the rock to iron grating suspended over a chasm so deep that the darkness below it was unfathomable. Chunks of soft, glowing green ore speckled the haphazardly quarried stone and provided a sombre light.

Green. Like the fel sludge covering bits and pieces of the Black Temple. He wanted more green, less blue; he'd make that happen, and in his mind he _would_ be going back to Outland. Kael'thas knew that Illidan would forgive him and that wasn't what bothered him, for if he returned and none of those that were caught in the ambush did, would he truly be better off living ( _reviled for his failures_ ) than as a martyr ( _beloved for his sacrifice_ )?

The whisper of satin against the grates caught his attention once more, coming far too close. His breathing became shallow and quiet, tiny puffs of mist echoing his breaths. Though his throat was dry he could not swallow. He dared not to peer around the the corner to place a face to the voices he heard subsequently.

"Kael'thas Sunstrider? My, we have him now, do we?" 

This voice echoed off the black walls, harsh in its hoarseness and tone laced with haughty boredom. He didn't dare peek out from behind his corner, kept his eyes closed to avoid them seeing that fel glow which cursed his irises since he first fed under Illidan's instruction. Ears twitching, he listened. 

"I wonder if Lana'thel will have much to say?" That name shot through Kael'thas like an arrow, a deep pang in his sternum that winded him like a punch. He remembered the face barely, but he could never forget a name, not a name which was affiliated with the aristocracy of Silvermoon, and though he talked to her little, he remembered bits and pieces of her - of that name - remembered the title of Countess, and fiery red hair framing a steely resolve.

Kael'thas felt all the strength drain from him, pool below his knees, down, down, to his feet. He slumped to the freezing ground, frosty black sheet metal caressing his legs with a stinging bite of chill, intricate and dangerous runes carved into its fathomless surface. He opened his eyes and stared down. There were elves kept there. He did not see them, and in his own misery he did not think of that possibility; did not assume it though if he had thought, had spent more than a moment wallowing he would have realised this to be the fate of those with him on this perilous mission - caught out in the snow with nowhere else to go. 

The Thuzadian Necromancer and his (undead) companion walked by ignorant of the Prince eavesdropping from the corridor, and he blathered on with words that melted together into nothing, and Kael'thas felt talons of ice digging into his skin, freezing him to the core, but he pushed himself to his knees so that he could stand on shaky legs like a newborn fawn. He continued on, too stubborn to let the ice claim him, too stubborn to just die and be reunited with Anasterian while there still might be something salvageable of his reputation as a Prince.

He pressed on past the arrogantly guard-sparse dungeons of Icecrown to somewhere else, somewhere just as dark and more dangerous with the tenuous promises of freedom and redemption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Blood Queen Lana'thel was left behind alongside other blood elves in Northrend when they followed Kael'thas and didn't manage to make it back to Outland in the retreat. They were hunted down over the ice and snow by the undead and turned into the Darkfallen as a consequence.
> 
> unbeta'd. tell me if there's any mistakes. end was hastily rushed to get this out lolol. i'll continue it past here dw.


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